Hope For A Sunken Island

Isla Carenero is a tiny island in Panama. Palm trees dot the sandy beaches and warm waters offers great fishing, snorkeling, and swimming year round. HOWEVER...and that is a big however. The island has a big problem. In 1991 an earthquake rocked the region causing the land to sink about 4 feet. Since then, standing water has become a breeding ground for Dengue fever carrying mosquitoes and trash has taken over a big part of the local village. Black water (raw sewage) is directly under many of the houses and the kids walk through it on their way to school. The bridges are literally underwater at high tide and the black water mixes the tidal water and covers the land.

So we are doing something about it.

We met with gov't officials and have made some amazing connections in the community. This weekend is clean up. We are really excited because the locals are taking responsibility for their own land. Even this week (before the official clean up date) we are seeing people picking up trash, planting flowers, painting porches and fences, fixing steps, and mowing grass that hasn't been mowed in forever.

The transformation is amazing.

To follow our journey and see pics and get updates, please go to www.povertyprojectinternational.com and see what we are doing. We do need donations to get some of the bigger projects done. But the real work has been done already...peoples hearts are changing...

The Beauty in Poverty...Can You See It?

I walk the streets and stop to admire an old fence, painted with the black of age. The lines are beautiful, the color rich, the patina authentic. This is what I see. But I also see the mold and the brokenness. It doesn't really guard much anymore. The home inside is dilapidated and covered in flowers. One might think the beauty here is about the long lost luster of a hacienda once stately. But it isn't. Its about the present. Its about the semi-crazy pruned black man who walks out from the eves and explains that he asked if he could live in the house so thieves would stop stealing the windows and door handles. Its about his intensity, his spoken belief of the importance of preserving the place, and about my knowledge that he really doesn't have any other place to live. That and his fan. Its about his one fan and his one light plugged in with a long extension chord to the house next door, so he can be cool in the heat and eat his supper in the light.